The Use of Paleomagnetic Data to Provide Constraints on Dynamo Models and the Evolution of the Earth's Core

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The PI will update and analyze paleomagnetic data for the last five million years to carry out robust statistical analyses on the polarity asymmetry problem and to determine the origin of the latitudinal variation of paleosecular variation. Preliminary analyses indicate that there is some discernible polarity asymmetry for the mean field ata (and only mean field data). The possibility that this asymmetry is due to thermal electric effects in the seismic D" region will be examined. Analyses of the present field using procedures analogous to those used by paleomagnetists in paleosecular variation studies of lava flows indicate a method by which for the first time the dipole and quadrupole families of dynamo theory can be distinquished by analyzing paleomagnetic data. Detailed analyses will be carried out using an updated data set for rocks with ages less than five million years. If successful for this period of time, the methods will be applied to updated data going back in time to the Cretaceous.